Who was Jean Amery? Victim or survivor? Agnostic or Jew? Austrian or exile? Philosopher or journalist? Jean Amery is not easy to classify but what this biography (the first in any language) demonstrates is that he is more - far more - than some enigmatic cult figure: he is one of the most influential of Holocaust survivors and one of the most provocative writers and thinkers of the 20th century. Jean Amery - born Hans Maier in Austria in 1912 - is perhaps best known for his seminal work, "At the Mind's Limits", one of the central texts on what Amery himself described as 'the subjective state of the victim.' But as Irene Heidelberger-Leonard's book reveals, Amery was not just a 'professional concentration camper', as he sometimes dubbed himself in a mixture of mockery and resignation. Drawing on a wide range of previously unpublished documents, Heidelberger-Leonard illuminates the turbulent life of this complex figure, from his middle class origins in pre-war Austria; his flight from his homeland to join the Resistance; his imprisonment in Auschwitz and Belsen; to his eventual suicide in 1978. This definitive biography examines how Amery grappled with what it meant to be both a victim and survivor of the concentration camps and what his experiences there reveal about the tension between human dignity and the reality of horror. Focusing chiefly on Amery's literary works, one of the book's great strengths lies in exploring how every aspect of Amery's life and thought is inextricably connected with his writings. This biography brilliantly demonstrates the importance of Amery in his own time and shows how his relevance extends far beyond.

Emil Fackenheim (1916–2003), one of the most important Jewish philosophers of the twentieth century, called on the world at large not only to bear witness to the Holocaust as an unprecedented assault on Judaism and on humanity, but also to recognize that the question of what it means to philosophize—indeed, what it means to be human—must be raised anew in its wake. The Philosopher as Witness begins with two recent essays written by Fackenheim himself and includes responses to the questions that Fackenheim posed to philosophy, Judaism, and humanity after the Holocaust. The contributors to this book dare to extend that questioning through a critical examination of Fackenheim's own thought and through an exploration of some of the ramifications of his work for fields of study and realms of religious life that transcend his own.

This is the powerful and moving story of the remarkable Jewish woman who converted to Catholicism, gained fame as a great philosopher in Germany, became a Carmelite nun, and was put to death in a Nazi concentration camp. Recently beatified by Pope John Paul II, Edith Stein was a courageous, intelligent and holy woman who speaks powerfully to us even today.

Regarded today as a Catholic martyr, Edith Stein was a convert from Judaism who became a nun, yet was nonetheless deported by the Nazis to her death in Auschwitz.

Jean Amery (1921-1978) was born in Vienna and in 1938 emigrated to Belgium, where he joined the Resistance. He was caught by the Germans in 1943, tortured by the SS, and survived the next two years in the concentration camps. In five autobiographical essays, Amery describes his survival--mental, moral, and physical--through the enormity and horror of the Holocaust.

Presents the life of the Italian Jewish author, examining his dual intellectual role as a scientist and writer and the legacy of his works in which he details his life as a survivor of Auschwitz.

The controversial journalistic analysis of the mentality that fostered the Holocaust, from the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism Sparking a flurry of heated debate, Hannah Arendt’s authoritative and stunning report on the trial of German Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann first appeared as a series of articles in The New Yorker in 1963. This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt’s postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative—an unflinching look at one of the most unsettling (and unsettled) issues of the twentieth century.

The American-Jewish philosopher Berel Lang has left an indelible impression on an unusually broad range of fields that few scholars can rival. From his earliest innovations in philosophy and meta-philosophy, to his ground-breaking work on representation, historical writing, and art after Auschwitz, he has contributed original and penetrating insights to the philosophical, literary, and historical debates on ethics, art, and the representation of the Nazi Genocide. In honor of Berel Lang’s five decades of scholarly and philosophical contributions, the editors of Ethics, Art and Representations of the Holocaust invited seventeen eminent scholars from around the world to discuss Lang’s impact on their own research and to reflect on how the Nazi genocide continues to resonate in contemporary debates about antisemitism, commemoration and poetic representations. Resisting what Alvin Rosenfeld warned as “the end of the Holocaust”, the essays in this collection signal the Holocaust as an event without closure, of enduring resonance to new generations of scholars of genocide, Jewish studies, and philosophy. Readers will find original and provocative essays on topics as diverse as Nietzsche’s reputed Nazi leanings, Jewish anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, wartime rescue in Poland, philosophical responses to the Holocaust, hidden diaries in the Kovno Ghetto, and analyses of reactions to trauma in classic literary works by Bernhard Schlink, Sylvia Plath, and Derek Walcott.

Heidegger, History and the Holocaust is an important contribution to the longstanding debate concerning Martin Heidegger's association with National Socialism. Although a difficult topic, this ambitious new work moves the entire debate on the Heidegger controversy forward. Following Being and Time Heidegger expands on his notion of authenticity and related notions such as historicity and makes repeated references to the authentic Dasein (presence or existence) of a people. He discusses the possibility of an authentic Dasein of a people along structurally consistent lines to the account of authenticity in Being and Time. O'Brien argues that the same difficulties which appear to hamstring the early account of authenticity further affect the notion of an authentic Dasein of a people. Ultimately, we may be forced to attribute Heidegger's political myopia in the thirties to an underlying failure to come to terms with some of the difficulties discussed in this study. O'Brien concedes that Heidegger's philosophy is influenced by its historical period and context but argues that - however inflammatory - Heidegger's rhetoric was not simply crude Nazi jingoism. Heidegger's philosophy on technology (in particular it's essence - Gestell) can be understood as a profound engagement with the atrocities of the Holocaust, and that his philosophy suggests that such an event is not an anomaly in Western history but remains an ongoing possibility. This book is a genuinely philosophical approach to the Heidegger controversy and a much-needed re-examination of his ideas and influences.

This is a comprehensive collection of readings from the work of Theodor Adorno, one of the most influential German thinkers of the twentieth century. What took place in Auschwitz revokes what Adorno termed the "Western legacy of positivity,” the innermost substance of traditional philosophy. The prime task of philosophy then remains to reflect on its own failure, its own complicity in such events. Yet in linking the question of philosophy to historical occurrence, Adorno seems not to have abandoned his paradoxical, life-long hope that philosophy might not be entirely closed to the idea of redemption. He prepares for an altogether different praxis, one no longer conceived in traditionally Marxist terms but rather to be gleaned from "metaphysical experience.” In this collection, Adorno's literary executor has assembled the definitive introduction to his thinking. Its five sections anatomize the range of Adorno's concerns: "Toward a New Categorical Imperative,” "Damaged Life,” "Administered World, Reified Thought,” "Art, Memory of Suffering,” and "A Philosophy That Keeps Itself Alive.” A substantial number of Adorno’s writings included appear here in English for the first time. This collection comes with an eloquent introduction from Rolf Tiedemann, the literary executor of Adorno’s work.